Time Staffers Miffed at Old Lang's Sign-Off & Payout

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A 15-month job tenure yields a $19 million payout over four years. Nice work if you can get it.

Staffers at Time, Inc., however, are not happy that Laura Lang, hired in 2012 as CEO of the company for a four-year term, but who announced her intended departure in March 2013, is netting a sweet payout, according to a column in today's New York Post.

The Post piece reports that Lang, who oversaw layoffs of 500 employees and a salary freeze (see "TUOL" posts 1/11/13 & 1/31/13), received a $1 million salary in 2012--her one full year on the job--and close to $1 million for her brief stay this year.  With stock value and bonus, her 2012 earnings reached $7.6 million. Additionally, the Post reported she received a $2.5 million separation bonus this year, and is expected to reap a $2.3 million "transaction bonus" next year over the splitting off of Time, Inc. from Time Warner, which mostly was overseen by Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes.

Lang announced in March she would step down as soon as a replacement was found, which was in August, though her contract carried through last month. Meanwhile, according to the Post, Time, Inc. managers lost their stock option grants with the Time Warner spinoffs.

Well, at least some people are finding magazine journalism profitable nowadays.

'Time' to Eat & Travel

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Time, Inc., the nation's largest magazine publisher, will acquire Food & Wine, Travel + Leisure and the rest of the stable of American Express, Inc.'s publishing arm, according to the Associated Press.

Financial terms of the deal, which is expected to close during the last quarter of 2013, were not disclosed. The deal will be finalized at around the same time Time Warner Inc. splits off  the Time, Inc. magazine division, publisher of Time, Sports Illustrated and People, among other titles, from Time Warner, which will concentrate on Warner Bros. studio and its tv holdings (See "TUOL" post 3/7/13].

Poor Time Inc.: Media Conglomerate Trims Workforce by 6%

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Vowing to "transform our company into one that is leaner, more nimble and more innately multi-platform," Time, Inc. CEO Laura Lang this week announced the media giant was pink-slipping 6 percent of its global workforce, or roughly 480 of its 8,000 employees.

According to online accounts by Bloomberg News and AdWeek, Time, Inc., the largest U.S. magazine publisher, suffered a 6.2 percent drop in sales over the first three quarters of 2012, compared to a year earlier, to $2.47 billion. Lang took the helm of Time, Inc. last year after a successful stint at the Digitas digital ad agency.

Declining newsstand sales of magazine titles, such as People and Fortune, had the industry and Time, Inc. employees fretting about looming layoffs (see "TUOL" post 1/11/13). The media company endured significant layoffs in 2008 and 2009 as well (see "TUOL" post 10/30/09).

Time (Inc.) Is A Wastin'

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Looking to trim $100 million in an uncertain climate marked by sinking ad revenues and declining readership, Time, Inc. may pink-slip 500 to 700 staffers next month, according to an exclusive story yesterday by New York Post columnist Kevin Kelly.

The Post article noted that Time, Inc. CEO Laura Lang put the kibosh on pay raises for an 8,000-strong workforce. Time, Entertainment Weekly, Fortune, and People are among the publications in the media conglomerate's stable.

Newstand Space Available: US News & World Report Goes Digital-Only

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US News & World Report, always the "show" in the newsmagazine race with "win/place" competitors Time and Newsweek, will publish its last print edition in December, according to stories in Agence France Presse and The New York Times.


Over the past two years, US News has evolved from a weekly to a semi-monthly to a monthly magazine as it was not immune to falling circulation, shrinking advertising revenue, and the migration of its readers to free Internet news sites that have plagued the industry.  Newsweek was sold for a $1 to an audio magnate a couple of months ago [see "TUOL" post 8/2/10]. US News' print edition's circulation was roughly 1.2 million.

Despite its digital-only decision, US News will continue to publish print versions of its special issues ranking colleges and hospitals and other occasional special single-topic issues. News content will be free at USNews.com.  The news organization claims no editorial layoffs will be precipitated by the decision to produce an online edition alone.